he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the room;
the door slowly began to open: a little wider and a little wider, and
then, when Bonivon's heart was on the point of bursting, it suddenly
swung open wide, and the cold, grey dawn falling on the threshold
revealed not a werwolf, but--a human being: a man in the unmistakable
garb of a Huguenot minister!

The reaction was so great that Bonivon rolled off the table and went
into paroxysms of ungovernable laughter.

At length, when he had sobered down, the Huguenot, laying a hand on his
shoulder, said: "Do you know now where you are? Do you recognize this
room? No! Well, I will explain. You are in the house of Roland Bertin,
and the body lying over yonder is that of my wife, whom your crew
barbarously murdered yesterday when they sacked this village. They took
me with them, and it was your intention to have me tortured and then
drowned as soon as you got to sea. Do you know me now?"

Bonivon nodded--he could not have spoken to save his life.

"Bien!" the minister went on. "I am a werwolf--I was bewitched some
years ago by the woman Grenier, Mere Grenier, who lives in the forest at
the back of our village. As soon as it was dark I metamorphosed; then
the ship ran ashore, and every one leaped overboard. I saw you drowning.
I saved you."

The captain again made a fruitless effort to speak, and the Huguenot
continued:--

"Why did I save you?--you, who had been instrumental in murdering my
wife and ruining my home! Why? I do not know! Had I preferred for you a
less pleasant death than drowning, I could have taken you ashore and
killed you. Yet--I did not, because it is not in my nature to destroy
anything. I have never in my life killed an animal, nor, to my
knowledge, an insect; I love all life--animal life and vegetable
life--everything that breathes and grows. Yet I am a Huguenot!--one of
the race you hate and despise and are paid to exterminate. Assassin, I
have spared you. Be not ungenerous. Spare others."

The captain was moved. Still speechless, he seized the minister's hands
and wrung them. And from that hour to the day of his death--which was
not for many years afterwards--the Huguenots had no truer friend than
Andre Bonivon.

WERWOLVES AND WITCHES

Other instances of werwolves of a benignant nature are to be found in
the "Bisclaveret" in Marie de France's poem, composed in 1200 A.D.; and
in the hero of "William and the Werwolf" (translated from the Fre